Mickey Rooney is … THE MANIPULATOR!

Up until recently, I firmly believed that Love and Other Drugs was the most annoying movie ever made.  But then, a few nights ago, I cracked open my Mill Creek 50 Drive In Movie Classic box set and I watched a little film from 1971.  I was just looking for a horror film to review for October.  Little did I know that I would soon be watching the most annoying movie ever made!

The name of that movie?

The Manipulator.

The star of that movie?

Mickey Freaking Rooney.

In The Manipulator, Mickey plays B.J. Lang, a former Hollywood makeup artist who has had a mental breakdown.  He now lives in a dusty warehouse, surrounded by old movie props and mannequins.  B.J. spends a lot of time talking to himself and trying on makeup.  Sometimes, he wears a fake nose and pretends that he’s Cyrano de Bergerac.  And then, at other times, he imagines all of his mannequins coming to life and taunting him.  (It’s kind of like the final scene of Maniac, except nobody’s head gets ripped off.)  Occasionally, he has weird flashbacks, which are all about giving the filmmaker an excuse to utilize the fish-eye lens and psychedelic lighting.

Eventually, we learn that BJ (and, as I watched the film, I kept wondering if his name was supposed to make viewers think about oral sex) is not alone in his warehouse.  There’s a woman (Luana Anders) who is being held prisoner.  He has her tied up in a chair and, whenever she begs to eat, he feeds her baby food.  BJ calls her Carlotta, though that’s apparently not actually her name.  The woman yells a lot.  Her first five minutes of screen time consist of her repeating, “MR. LAAAAAAAAAANG” over and over again.

BJ spends most of his time delivering monologues about how Hollywood used to be and occasionally, he demands that Carlotta help him put on a play.  At one point, BJ appears to have a heart attack and this leads to Carlotta going, “DON’T DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE, MR. LAAAAAAAAANG” over and over again.

And then a homeless bum (Keenan Wynn) shows up and wanders about for five minutes before dying.

The problem with writing about a film like The Manipulator is that, just by describing the plot, you make it sound more interesting than it actually is.  You’re probably reading this and thinking, “Wow, this sounds really weird!  I need to see it at least once…”

No, you don’t.  It may sound weird but ultimately, it’s more emptily pretentious than anything else.  This was both director Yabo Yablonsky’s first and final film and there is not a single camera trick that he does not employ.  We get the weird angles, the random moments of slow motion, the even more random moments when the film is suddenly sped up, the extreme close-ups, the sudden blackouts, the ragged jump cuts, and, of course, lots of rack focus and zoom lens use.  Compared to The Manipulator, the direction of Getting Straight appears to be mild and conventional!  The film does feature three talented performers but none of them seem to have the slightest idea what the movie is about or who they are supposed to be playing.  In particular, both Rooney and Wynn seem to be making up their dialogue as they go along.

And really, that’s why The Manipulator is so annoying.  It should have, at the very least, been an insane misfire.  Instead, it’s just boring.

Sorry, Mickey.